Friday, January 6, 2017

Filibuster This Democrats: You Can Pay The Price Now For Gutting The Senate's Supermajority Rule

Turnabout is fair play: Retired Sen. Harry Reid gutted

the Senate's filibuster rule, and how Republicans are

set to take advantage of it. (AP)

Rules: You have to laugh at the Democrats' current plight. They have almost no leverage to block anyone Donald Trump decides to select for judgeships or cabinet posts. They can't stop Republicans from repealing most of ObamaCare. And they only have themselves to blame.

On CNN this week, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer was lamenting the fact that Democrats wouldn't be able to use the filibuster to stop Trump's nominees.

There should, he said, be "60 votes because on such important positions there should be some degree of bipartisanship."

And who, exactly, is to blame for this? Schumer's predecessor in the Senate's leadership ranks, Harry Reid, who in 2013 eliminated the filibuster for presidential appointments, except to Supreme Court.

Reid did it for short-term political reasons — he wanted to let Obama quickly pack the lower courts with liberal judges. The left-wing media cheered the move, with The New York Times heralding it in an editorial titled "Democracy Returns to the Senate." (We wrote in opposition to Reid's action on several occasions: see below for a sampling.)